


blue

by daisylincs



Series: Daisy Johnson Appreciation Week 2020 [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Colour-Focused, Daisy Johnson Appreciation Week 2020, Development Fic, F/M, I'm very proud of this, Not Spoiler-free, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26026234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: A development through the life of Daisy Johnson, as seen in moments containing the colourblue.
Relationships: Jiaying & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Series: Daisy Johnson Appreciation Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886254
Comments: 23
Kudos: 99





	blue

**Author's Note:**

> Daisy Johnson has been through one of the most incredible journeys of, well, pretty much any character I can think of - it’s one of the reasons why I love her _so much._ Now, I already did a tribute kind of thing in my previous fic in this series, so in this one I wanted to try something else: a few steps through Daisy’s journey.
> 
> It’s been pointed out by many of the wonderful people in the fandom, and even by Chloe herself, that purple is Daisy’s colour. And I agree. It really, really is.
> 
> But for this fic, I wanted to go on something of an unexpected route: the obvious choice would be purple, right? So I thought - what if I _don’t_ choose purple? What if I find another colour that’s been present in some of the biggest moments in Daisy’s journey?
> 
> And once I went and searched, you wouldn’t _believe_ how many of the most pivotal moments in Daisy’s life had something to do with the colour _blue._ I was quite blown away, and I only managed to include about a quarter of them in this fic!
> 
> The colour blue symbolises, among other things, _trust, loyalty, confidence, truth,_ and _stability._ The great thing is that this fic is a progression through all of those things, as well as a progression through Daisy’s life - and I’m gushing, and probably being a little insufferable, but I’m just _so_ proud of this!! I really, really hope you guys like it too. 🤗

It was a warm summer's night in the Hunan province of China, the kind of night where you could almost feel the heat in the air, hot and sticky. The kind of night where you wanted nothing more than to melt into a puddle on the blessedly cool sheets of your bed.

The Johnson household, however, was wide awake - the air rent with the sound of screams. 

"Almost there," Cal Johnson said, squeezing his wife's hand as she tipped her head back in another long, drawn-out scream. 

But this time, she wasn't screaming alone - a new sound had joined them in the room, young and new and beautiful. 

"You did it," Cal told his wife, swiping at the wetness in his eyes as he lovingly wrapped his daughter in a soft cotton blanket. "You did it." 

Jiaying gave a watery laugh as she took the baby in her arms, pulling her close against her chest and rocking her gently. 

"Hello, baby," she said softly, feeling the prickle of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away, her lips tugging up in a tender smile. "Hello, Daisy." 

The baby stopped her crying as her mother gently brushed a curl of soft, dark hair off her forehead, her eyes opening wide and round. 

And her blanket was blue. 

-

"How will you come at us? From the air? From the ground? How will you silence us this time? How _can_ you? The truth is in the wind, and the wind is everywhere. You can _not_ stop the Rising Tide. 

“You will not find us. You will never see our faces. But rest assured, we will rise against those who shield us from the truth, and nothing, _nothing_ can stop us in the -”

The van’s door swung open, and there were two men in dark suits, the older of whom was smirking slightly. 

“Hey,” Skye said, turning around and plastering on a smile was entirely _ah, shit._ “Whaddup?”

The smirking one moved his head slightly, and the other one moved faster than she could follow, pulling a black bag over her head before she had time to react.

But the image of the older agent - his amused little smirk, the way he looked almost like someone she wanted to trust, his impeccable suit - that stayed sharp in her mind.

And his tie was blue. 

-

It was like there was a dull buzzing in her head at all times now, like a swarm of bees had gotten trapped there - and sometimes, if she wasn’t concentrating on keeping them _down,_ the bees swarmed out.

And just like a swarm of bees, people got hurt when they did.

She wanted to get rid of it, but she couldn’t do that.

Controlling it seemed to be the next best thing.

“Do you understand your gift?” Jiaying - the woman who she had never met before, but who somehow seemed so _familiar_ \- asked, her brow furrowed slightly.

Skye shifted. “I… make things shake?”

Jiaying chuckled softly, shaking her head, and Skye had to blink at how warm and familiar the gesture was. “Well, not really. Everything is shaking already, vibrating at its own natural frequency.”

The buzzing in the back of her head seemed to dip and rise a little in volume, like waves rippling through a tank, almost as though they agreed with what the woman was saying.

“This stone,” Jiaying went on, glancing down and opening her palm to show Skye a smooth, round stone. “The wind, the trees.”

_Dip, rise._ She could have been imagining it, but the small changes almost seemed to match the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair.

“I believe you can learn to sense those frequencies around you, and resonate with them so that not everything is shaking,” Jiaying told her, and Skye almost took a step back - but something about the gentle dip and rise in the back of her mind whispered, _she’s right, she’s right._

“Only what you choose,” Jiaying finished with a small, encouraging smile.

Skye blinked slowly. “Sense a frequency. How do I do that?”

Jiaying laughed again, playful and somehow still encouraging. “I don’t know, I’m not the one with the gift. I just work here.”

She held out her hand, the stone lying flat on her palm. 

Skye’s eyes widened. “You think I can _hear_ the stone?”

Jiaying smiled, and everything about her was just telling Skye to _trust_ her. It didn’t make sense, but something about this woman just felt so _familiar._

And the gentle buzzing in her head, the dip and rise of it… as she reached for the stone, it was almost like she could _feel_ something shifting in the back of her mind.

She closed her eyes to feel it better… and gasped out loud.

The very _shape_ of the buzzes had changed - the small dips and changes flooding together to form a picture. 

A picture of the mountain.

Her eyes flew open, and she gazed at it in front of her, her breathing catching with wonder when it looked _exactly_ like the picture in her mind. 

“Whoa,” she said softly.

“Can you hear it?” Jiaying asked, her smile a mixture of impressed and proud.

“Not the stone, the _mountain,”_ Skye said, pointing with the hand that was still gripping the stone, still a little giddy and awed. “It’s the loudest thing here.”

“Now take that frequency and see if you can amplify it,” Jiaying instructed.

Skye turned to look at the mountain again, the smile fading from her lips as memories rushed in. 

_Swarm of bees._

She shook her head quickly. “The last time I did something like that, a lot of people got hurt.”

Jiaying’s expression softened. “You can’t hurt the mountain, and you’re _not_ going to hurt me.” Her voice was gentle but firm, and Skye… believed her.

She nodded quickly, then turned to face the mountain again, aware of Jiaying taking a small step back behind her.

Drawing in a quick, deep breath, she held out her hand and closed her eyes, concentrating until she could see the picture of the mountain in her mind again.

Then she reached for it, and pulled it towards her.

For a second, nothing happened.

And then --

_Crack._

It was like she could sense it before it was happening, but she opened her eyes to make sure - and, yes, one side of the mountain had cracked, a wave of snow tumbling down the side and tearing through the trees on the slope.

“I moved a mountain,” Skye breathed.

In that moment, with the wind blowing through her hair, and the avalanche she had caused crashing down the mountain in front of her, she had never felt more fulfilled.

And her shirt was blue. 

-

Daisy was folding her leather jacket, tucking it into her locker neatly on top of the pile, when she heard the door open. She turned around, one hand still on the locker door, and quirked her eyebrows.

It was Lincoln.

“Hey, you,” she said, turning around properly so she could smile up at him. 

“Welcome back,” he said, his eyes crinkling with smile lines as he pushed the door shut behind him, grinning affectionately over at her. 

“So, um… I just ran into Joey,” he said, walking over to stand across from her with his arms folded. He raised his eyebrows, his expression a mixture of curious and pleased. “He’s packing up.”

Daisy laced her fingers, half-unconsciously mirroring his stance. “Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly at him. Tilting her head slightly, she asked, “You think I’m making a mistake?”

Lincoln raised his eyebrows. “What, letting him have a normal life like everyone else?” His tone was half-incredulous, but his eyes were warm as he looked at her. “No, you’re not.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean... offering _you_ the same deal.”

She was smiling, making it carefree and casual, but it was _important._

“Your APB’s been lifted, no-one’s looking for you. You could go back to your old life if you want,” she continued, holding his gaze so that he could see how completely sincere she was. 

She knew that coming to SHIELD hadn’t really been his choice, and if he wanted to leave, she needed him to know that she’d _let_ him, even though part of her - the part that had been abandoned over and over - was screaming at her to be quiet, to let him stay, to stop giving him the chance to leave her behind.

She didn’t think he would leave, but she cared too much to be the person forcing him to stay here if he was unhappy. It was like she had told him that day in his friend’s apartment - she couldn’t _help_ it.

He tilted his head, and for a heart-stilling moment, she thought he was considering it.

Then he took a step forward, his smile flickering into something entirely playful and flirtatious as he stepped into her space. “I don’t know,” he said, grinning down at her. “It’s pretty interesting here.”

She could feel the beginnings of an answering grin tugging at her lips, happy and hopeful, and she bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to smile _too_ much as she closed the last distance between them. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, almost right against his lips.

Then she let herself grin with all the happy delight she felt, pressing her forehead against his and wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him, practically melting against him as he kissed her back immediately.

This was good. This was really, _really_ good. She had given him the chance to walk away, left the metaphorical door standing wide open - and he had pushed it firmly shut; chosen her instead. 

She couldn’t remember when last she had felt this effortlessly happy. She could just see them developing into something amazing in the future - and the thought made her grin against his lips, grin so much that she had to break the kiss. 

Lincoln just grinned back, his whole face softening before he leaned down to kiss her again.

And his eyes were blue.

-

Daisy staggered through the hallways of the Playground, and it was as though every step rattled her bones, crushing her from the inside in a way not even her powers could.

Every room, every turn, every _locker_ held a memory of him, of them - that couch where he used to sit and laugh with Jemma over medical nonsense nobody else understood, the room Coulson had assigned for him before he had moved in with her, the corner in the locker room where he used to dump all his stuff in an untidy mess.

Hell, even the _kitchen_ held memories - of the two of them bumping into each other late one night and sharing lemonade, giggles and quick kisses.

The very thought of it was enough to make her heart wrench so painfully that she almost collapsed to the floor.

She couldn’t stay. There was _no way_ that she could stay; not here.

Not when her every _step_ was haunted by the ghost of him, and crushed by the overwhelming, crippling guilt that it was _her fault._

Because it was. It _was_ her fault.

If she hadn’t been swayed by Hive -

If she had only _stayed_ in the containment module -

If she had only listened when he had wanted to go on a break -

If, if, if.

She didn’t have space in her heart for them all - they would tear her apart from the inside out, if she let them.

So after tonight, she wouldn’t. She would shut herself away, cut herself off completely from all the people who could hurt her like this.

All the people she could _lose._

Coulson, May, Fitz, Jemma, Mack - none of them would understand. They would all try to make her stay.

That was why she had come down here late at night; so late that everyone was fast asleep, or else convinced that she was still buried in her room the way she had been for these last few days.

She reached the locker room, and just the sight of her locker was almost enough to set her crying again. 

But she didn’t cry. She had cried all the tears she had in these last weeks.

Now, it was time for change.

People were going to say she was hard and cold. They were going to _fear_ her.

But she didn’t care.

Let them say whatever they wanted. She would help in the only way she still could - saving lives and keeping her distance from her people.

It was better for _everyone_ this way.

Opening the door of her locker, Daisy took out a soft, checkered shirt and stared at it for a moment.

Then she ripped the sleeves, till there were jagged holes in the fabric.

Good. 

That was poetic.

Reaching into the locker again, she pulled out a black leather jacket, slinging it over her arm as she turned away from the room.

Once she reached the door of the base, she held out her hand and quaked it apart, watching the newly-reinforced metal splinter and come flying apart in front of her.

Daisy Johnson blew that door apart, and Quake walked out, pulling the black leather jacket around her shoulders.

And her shirt was blue. 

-

Daisy’s ears were buzzing faintly, and she wasn’t sure if it was her or this _place,_ whatever the hell it was, with its creepy blue walls and even creepier Kree dude currently looking at her like she was a prize horse that was going to win him a lot of trophies. 

“Our astralscope projects your consciousness,” the Kree said, walking in a slow, deliberate circle around her. “Physically, you are being brought to me.”

His smile was cold and smug. “But rest assured, you are already mine.”

Daisy almost wanted to roll her eyes. _You are already mine,_ really? Cliché villain, much? 

She settled for shaking her head contemptuously at him. “You know I have a little experience getting out of stuff like this, right?”

“I’m afraid this is different,” he said, still making his slow circles around her. 

Daisy didn’t bother to turn around and follow him, keeping her gaze cold and set straight ahead of her.

“You have already lost all sense of how long you’ve been here, haven’t you?” the Kree asked smugly, coming to a stop off to her side.

Daisy was unsettled, but she didn’t let it show, choosing to keep her gaze ice-cold as she looked at him.

He seemed to realise it anyway, if his smirk was anything to go by. “I find that people, outside of physical space - when they lose time, when they get hungry, but they can’t eat, when they get tired, but they can’t sleep…”

His expression, his _confidence,_ was chilling. “They _break.”_

The most unsettling thing was that he was probably right - if she didn’t get out of this pretty soon, who knew what she was going to do?

The bastard actually smiled. “So,” he said. “I already know what your future holds.”

Daisy smiled, too, and it was all coldness and menace. “Hm. Funny. ‘Cause I’ve seen the future, too.”

The Kree tilted his head, intrigued for a moment.

She smiled coldly, enjoying the power she held over him. “And you have two despicable sons who wear even dumber makeup than you, and they _die,_ like cowards, stabbed in the back.”

She thought of _her_ family - of Coulson and May, of Fitz and Jemma, of Mack and Elena, of Deke, even. 

_They_ had never stabbed her in the back. 

They never would, either. 

And now they needed her.

If she _really_ concentrated, she could almost sense the astral walls flickering around her, _sense_ where the projection ended and reality began.

“And I get out of this,” she said, and it was a promise.

She closed her eyes for a second, letting the little flickers grow and strengthen in the periphery of her mind. “I’m stronger than you know,” she told the Kree.

He laughed, still so confident in himself. “Everyone thinks that.”

Daisy’s smile was one of purpose and pure, unadulterated _power._ “But in my case, it’s true,” she said, giving him an electric second to let it sink in.

She lowered her hands to her side, dropping her chin and letting the little flickers fill her mind completely, tuning in on them until she knew without a trace of doubt where her reality was. 

Then she looked up. “I’m the Destroyer of Worlds.”

She held out her hands, _pulling_ the vibrations towards her until the projection shattered around her, freeing her to fulfill her purpose, to get to her _family._

And the walls were blue. 

-

Daisy’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring up at the glass of the healing chamber, _again._

She was still a little out of breath from the previous loop, Coulson’s words still ringing through her mind - _“next time, same thing, but faster!”_

She closed her eyes for a second, letting herself rage in the frustration of it all for a moment. They had been so _close._

Then she slammed her hand on the button to open the chamber, sitting up as soon as the lid started to rise.

_Thud._ The same way he had for the last however-many loops, Sousa started awake at the sound of her boots hitting the floor, his face the picture of half-asleep confusion. “Hey. What are you doing up?”

“Uh…” Daisy glanced off to the side, her mind scrambling to try and find out what the fastest way to explain this would be. 

“I need you to do something for me,” she said, turning back to Sousa and half-unconsciously knotting her fingers.

He looked surprised, but there it was again, that _total_ willingness to do whatever the hell it was she needed. “Of course,” he said, standing up from his chair. “What do you need?”

Daisy’s mind was still racing through the events of the last loop, but the combination of the concern in his eyes and the sheer _sincerity_ in his voice brought her to a complete stop.

He really _would_ do anything for her.

What was it he had said? _“Some of my favourite people are people like you.”_

And, _“you should have someone there to pick you back up.”_

She didn’t even have to _ask,_ and he was already there, already offering to help - and she knew with a deep, unshakeable kind of certainty that he would _keep_ being there for the rest of her life, if she wanted it.

And Daisy… wanted it.

For the first time in _years,_ she felt like she could open her heart to someone again - and what really got to her was how _easy_ it was. It was like the walls she had built up over the years had faded away, become smaller and smaller until they had shrunken away completely - because he had _said_ it, hadn’t he? He would pick her up from those very same walls.

Maybe that hadn’t been exactly what he had meant, but at that moment, Daisy felt completely breathless, like she had just discovered something indescribably _brilliant._

Realistically, she couldn’t have been standing there for more than a second, but it felt like the dawn of forever to her. Like she had had an epiphany, and the whole world looked a little different now.

Acting on her realisation, she moved forward and closed the distance between them, gripping his collar and pressing her lips against his.

He was completely still against her, frozen in surprise, and for a moment she worried that she had ruined everything, that she had acted far too fast -

But then he bent his head and kissed her back, firm and sure, and she felt like she might explode from the sheer happiness flooding through her.

They needed to go trap a space robot in about two seconds, but right now, she could let herself enjoy this. 

Because God, there really was a lot to enjoy, wasn’t there? She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt as radiantly _happy_ as she did at that moment, leaning into Daniel Sousa in the middle of a time loop.

It was something she had _never,_ through all the crazy chaos she had been through, imagined was even _possible_ \- but she could see a _future_ with him, in this moment pressed against him, a future where she could spend her every moment filled with this complete and perfect happiness. 

And his shirt was _blue._


End file.
